The Modern Art of Living
by graphomaniac
Summary: They say there is an art to everything, including the mundane. The clothing we wear. The music we make. The movement of our bodies. The words we say. In living. A medium I've mostly avoided, living. Makes me wonder, is there art in the avoidance of risk


**Chapter 1: Atelier**

**Atelier**; French word meaning "workshop", in English it is used primarily for the workshop of an artist skilled in fine or decorative arts.

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January 2008

I can't believe I'm still sitting here staring at this spreadsheet. I've been camped in my office, stuck in this chair for the better part of an hour trying to make sense of these orders. The amount due is higher than I was expecting. Something's not balanced right.

My whole butt has gone totally numb and shifting from cheek to cheek has done nothing but give me wedgie. Friggin Ikea chairs. So stylish and cheap. And ridiculously uncomfortable.

I tick off each item. I'm expecting the paper towels. The cake boards. And pretty much everything else on the midmonth list.

Maybe if I sit all the way on the seat edge and smoosh my nose to the screen I'll finally figure out why my inventory and my suppliers count isn't matching up. Nope, super wedgie. I can see my reflection in the laptop glass. My face is so scrunched up that my eyes look like little slits. I'm the very poster child of an optometrist dream. Pastry bags, skewers. Wait, there it is.

Fondant. Someone, _and I'm guessing Jess, _has slipped in an extra order of the sticky pastry coating.

I've got a standing order for eight 20 pound containers of satin ice at a whopping $70 a tub per month, which isn't due to be replenished for another week. I'm pretty sure Jess was trying to cover for Lauren, again. She wouldn't have known that by adding "1" to the purchase list that she was actually adding one complete round and not the single batch she most likely intended.

"Jessss, you are killing me", I say to my ceiling.

I click 'remove from basket' and add in a smaller tub of the fondant to replace what Lauren no doubt ruined. Much better. I submit my order and print out the invoice to add to the file cabinet.

I grab a beginners book on fondant techniques. I'm going to have to ask Angela or Eric to give Lauren another crash course in how to handle the edible clay. She's got about a month left in her 90 day probationary period at which the end of I hope to feel less rotten about letting her go. Any other bake shop that liked to stay in the black would have kicked her to the curb somewhere around 59 days ago.

Divine intervention would be necessary for Lauren make a significant improvement and I don't think angels sing her praises. At least not the Lauren I remember.

I still can't believe Jess guilt tripped me into hiring her cousin who had gotten herself fired for excessively calling in sick to her last job. Migraines Lauren had claimed. But Jess and Lauren were roommates, and split all expenses. Jess had explained that if Lauren couldn't find a job she was moving back home leaving Jess in a bind. Then Jess would be forced into trying to find a non-psycho roomie or move back home as well. Which meant I would have to train two new hires.

So I gave in. I agreed to hire Lauren, temporarily. I disagreed that she was a non-psycho. Lauren hasn't had a migraine yet though.

To say that Lauren was not the best one on staff was generous. She just doesn't have the natural creativity that Angela, Eric, Jess, and my baby sister Allison have. Even Leah Clearwater, who mainly works support- answering phones, working the registers- can work a pastry bag if necessary.

Gosh I'm such a marshmallow. Jessica Stanley is my oldest friend here. I've known her from when I lived back in the old town, where the people now fall into one of two categories. The "Have to Keep in Touch With" and the "Want to Keep in Touch With". Jess was a good friend and solidly on the "want to" list along with my sister and Charlie.

The "had to's" consisted of Charlie's life long buddies, his deputy coworkers, my former teachers and neighbors. Required acquaintances when you live in a small town. They seem to know everything about you no matter how much time you've spent away.

Sad as it was to admit, there had been days when even my Dad, Charlie, found himself on the other side. Mostly it was when he had a brain fart and tried to bring up anything to do with the one I'm mandated by law to keep in contact with.

Jess had always been a true friend. She's never judged me even back when I was making some pretty questionable choices. I only attended the last grading period of my senior year with her but our friendship stuck.

The summer after high school graduation I didn't have college to look forward to. I didn't have much at all. I couldn't even find a job. No one wanted to hire a teenage girl with my ability limitations. Why waste the time, they had said.

I was still living with Charlie and Alice back then. Then Gran brought me to live with her after Charlie declared my being under his roof 'just wasn't working out'.

Gran had made something of a name for herself baking and selling cakes out of her house. She liked being busy. She had taught Wilton cake decorating lessons at craft stores for years and made custom cakes on the side.

So she taught me too. I helped her with cake orders of all kinds. It was cathartic, creating something that matched other peoples happiness.

I spent pretty much all my time with Gran. Gran at home. Gran at the craft store. Gran at her 'sewing circle', Stitch and Bitch she had called it. But we stopped going after Gran and I walked in on a few of the ladies discussing me.

I tried to tell Gran that I was fine, that she could go and I would just stay home. She wouldn't hear it. She had said, "Sugar, those old Betties never could shut their traps. Talk about hypocrites. _"Such an unfortunate shame", _they say. You know at least two of them has got a queer son. I made commitment petit fours for one. Petit Fours!"

I didn't know that.

"One's got a grown daughter that's in the pokey for making that drug from cold medicine. And then one's got a granddaughter who married the most delicious black man I have ever, ever seen. They'll have chocolate butter cream babies." She pinched my cheek and patted my thigh then. "But an eighteen year old girl doing something eighteen year old girls have been doing since before even their time is disgraceful? Those bitches can just bite me". As if I wasn't enough of a blubbering mess.

I loved Gran. But she needed her friends her own age, so did I.

I had been living with my Gran for just a few months when I remembered Jess was going to one of the colleges here. She had gotten an FFA scholarship to a private university and hoped to kiss Giddings goodbye. Jess earned the funding for school through the sale of a prize winning sheep but she would never admit it to her sorority sisters. She was going to study liberal arts, what ever that meant.

When Jess wasn't off at a kegger or something or another, I spent many nights curled up on her fold out chair bed pretending I belonged in that place too. I admit I was a little jealous she was getting to have this experience, one I knew would never be mine.

Jess helped me navigate this crazy path I was on and kept the comments to a minimum. She kept me from wobbling too far to one side just long enough for me to make the decisions I needed to make. Really it was blind leading the blind. I don't know why she wanted me as a friend then. I didn't have much to contribute to our friendship. We joke and say she was using me for the desserts.

Jess did have to go back home once. When her grades were less than stellar her sophomore year, she lost that scholarship.

Four years ago this spring Gran died of a heart attack. It was Jess who came to help me clean out Gran's room, figure out what was next. I assumed I was headed back to live with Charlie. But she suggested I at least finish off the cake orders Gran had already accepted. This would be my goodbye to her.

It was Jess' turn to sleep on a fold out. She started camping out in Grans living room the night before I had a cake order to deliver. She'd help with the finishing touches and take pictures to dump on the computer.

Once wedding season was over I thought I had fulfilled all the orders Gran had agreed to. But there always seemed to be just one more. Jess finally fessed up to posting my cakes on Craigslist and taking new requests. She had actually been doing the smaller ones of just cupcakes and cookies too.

She opened a file on Grans ancient desktop that showed cakes, cookies, pies, cupcakes and these weird little cakes on a stick, like donut holes. All that we had made. And then she showed me the blog she created. And the list of contacts she had made and the reviews for the baked goods. Then she pointed out that between her little pastries and mine, we had made more profit in a month than Gran did in six. I had no idea.

Jess pushed a piece of printer paper towards me. It was from a leasing agent for a small commercial kitchen available for rent in the Warehouse district. Jess whispered, "We could do it you know. Just keep making the cakes. I wouldn't have to go home and you wouldn't think you should."

Gran's estate was finally settled then. Though there really wasn't much to settle. Gran had outright owned the house and her car. She had always refused to be indebted to anyone for anything so there had been no creditors looking for a piece of her life savings. She had no surviving children or siblings. In her will everything was left to me. She had always been too generous. Even in death.

Gran's money, my new status as a homeowner and the blog Jess had been keeping was enough for some crazy newbie at the bank to approve me for a small business loan. _The Sugar Shack _was opened the fall of 2004.

Once I signed the lease and got the keys Jess brought up partnership before I had the chance to do so. I mean, this place was her idea and I was prepared to offer her a huge part it. But she refused. She didn't want the responsibility, she only wanted a job.

Jess was my first hire. Angela and Eric joined the staff soon after. And then most wonderful person of all, Allison. Once Alice had finally graduated and turned 18 I snatched her up. Leah came on once things started to get really busy the following year. She was only supposed to be counter help so that I and the rest of the crew could focus on the baking but I've grown to count on her in so many more ways. They're my family.

And that brings us to Lauren. Her bakery skills don't go much beyond eating but she doesn't complain about being asked to wash dishes and clean the floors. I had hoped she could be trained to take on some basic frosting but this latest fondant issue has me reconsidering.

The front room phone is ringing and I yell to who ever can hear me, "Can someone get that please, trying to finish orders back here." I sit back down in the butt numbing chair and start looking for the pages that Lauren needs to review.

I find them and the freaking phone is still ringing. I give in an walk from the back offices into the main portion of the store where the sweets are on display.

"Seriously, who do I have to pay to answer the phones?" I bark out. Gosh I'm crabby today.

Leah has grabbed the phone up, putting an end to the trill sound. She's got it balanced between her left shoulder and ear while she hip checks the cash drawer closed and right hands a paper receipt to the customer in front of her. She gives me a scowl which probably mirrors my own frustration. Except that I just basically told her she wasn't doing the job I hired her to do. She's not really, because she does way more that I pay her to do.

Leah waggles her hear toward a line, four persons deep, that was her excuse for not snapping up the phone as I demanded. I nod my apology and join her at the cash wrap to help the customers while she handles the phone inquiry. Leah has to head out by 2:30 anyways so I may as well get comfortable filling white, waxy paper sacks.

Alice pops her head out of the supply closet directly behind me just then. "Frig Alice! Lurk much?" She's using a roll of last weeks paper towels to wipe purple frosting from her hands.

"You know this, " Alice gestures all around, 'wouldn't happen if you'd just hire someone like we talked about months ago. Someone NOT like Lauren, please."

Leah chuckles and hands over a bag with four slutty brownies and a piece of peanut butter fudge to the man in front of her. He pulls the fudge out right there and takes a bite, moaning his approval. He may need new undies.

I stomp my foot and then I stomp it again because I can't believe I've just stomped my foot like a five year old. I'm about to go all 'Who's the Boss' on Alice's tiny little self when she crosses her eyes and sticks her tongue out at me and I can't yell at her anymore. Now we're both five.

Instead I pull the elastic that held my sloppy pony tail in place and snap it around my wrist. I check to see how Leah is managing the rest of the sugar craving mob. She's reaching across the counter for a single sheet of paper a woman is handing her. It's an order for a full sheet child's first birthday cake and smasher cake.

We've always included a complimentary smasher cake for first birthday cake orders. It's a great way to ensure repeats. The mom thanks Leah for her help and Leah thanks her for her patronage.

I really should be thankful we need to hire a new employee. Three years of doing pretty good in the Warehouse district and I'm behaving all jaded. Those cupcake trailers could put me under anytime. They have so little overhead to be worried about. I need to be happy that Alice and Leah are practically begging me to hire someone. Festival season is around the corner. And then wedding season. I can't deny it, we need help.

Leah is stepping out from the cash wrap when the door chimes as slutty brownie man exits and waits for a woman in dark shades to enter. She removes her glasses and looks around the shop, evaluating the space. She's holding a binder of what looks like glossy, ripped from a magazine pages. She's sporting a rather dazzling bauble on her ring finger.

Bride. Here to view wedding cakes no doubt.

Leah meets her in front of a display case and leads her over to the brides table. It's the only table we keep dressed with white linens topped with a tiny arrangement of fresh-ish flowers. They are red and white tulips today.

Alice pitches the white, now purple splotched, towel into the trash bin and turns to the work room. She raises her hands in the air and yells in a maniacal voice, "Soon, soooooon!".

Leah left the bride to flip through a few portfolios of our past work and heads to where I'm still standing. She's got a peaceful look about her even after my hissy fit and the rush we just had. She hardly ever gets ruffled. It's the reason she has the job she does.

"Hey Bella," she saying. "It's about that time." I nod in understanding.

Leah's walking over to the coat tree where she hung her jacket and umbrella when she stops and and makes me an offer I've never been able to turn down. "I'm feeling the need for some liquid, caffeine happy. Can I bring you back some happy too?"

"Oh gosh, yes, yes!" I sound like slutty brownie man.

Leah giggles in that ridiculous female way that she does. Like she just heard puppies stay puppy sized forever and cotton candy won't make you fat instead of that grotesque affirmation of my coffee need.

"Hot or cold?", she asks me.

It's January, technically still winter, but winter in central Texas means the temperatures all week have been in the 70s. This 'heat wave' calls for iced coffee. "Mmmmm, cold please."

Leah winks at me and shrugs into her cardigan sweater. She grabs her purse from under the counter and is just about to pull her keys out when she remembers something. "Oh, the woman over there, Emily I believe, is looking through the wedding portfolios. I told her the owner would be over to help her in a minute."

I go over to greet Emily and reach out to shake her hand. She has long elegant arms. The right one is covered in at least a dozen silver bangles and her left one casually lifts and covers our shaking hands in a way that would suggest familiarity. I look down at her hand and realize, duh, she's trying to get me to notice her ring.

Mother of Pearl its huge! Like, Paris Hilton would wear this ring, huge. It's bigger than my thumb nail and so freaking gaudy I wonder how she manages to hold her hand up at all.

Awesome. She's going to buy a lot of cake.

I'm going to compliment her now because no matter how gross I think it is, the customer is always right. "Oh wow Emily, your ring is so elegant and classic. Your fiancé has amazing taste."

Emily rocks her hand back and forth allowing the gazillion facets to catch the light and kaleidoscope around the shop. She could summon Batman with this thing.

"Yes," she agrees, "Samuel, Samuel Uley, did a fine job didn't he?" She leans into me a adds, "but just between us girls, he did have some help. Can you imagine guys who try to propose with outdated hand me down rings!"

There's a name I haven't heard this side of highway 183. "Did you say Sam Uley?"

She flashes her Zoom! teeth at me and grabs my hands again, swinging them with hers. This girl is handsy. "You recognize his name!"

I pat her hands, hoping this calms her down from her current Chihuahua state and ask, "Emily, did you grow up in Giddings?"

"Oh fuck no!", she's gasped in disgust and backs away from me to a normal personal space range. "But Samuel is, or was rather."

So much for refined elegance, potty mouth.

I nod at her and try to come up with a save for my most heinous faux pas. "OMG Emily! I meant to ask if Samuel was, not you. No way you could be from there. I'd have remembered you for sure. His name does sound familiar though."

Emily sweeps the long dark tendrils from her shoulder, exposing her collar bone. I could snap that chicken bone with my thumb. She gives me a creepy hug and we are best friends again. "Samuel is so silly. You know he actually thought you might not be pleased to see me!"

I try to keep from making any sudden movements and wave to suggest we sit down. "May I ask how you heard about us?"

Emily is flipping through the scrapbooks again, not really seeing anything. She doesn't look up when she replies. "Oh, well there's a few reasons I'm here. Mostly because my parents insisted Samuel and his family have some say in my wedding plans and a hand in cake selection would be a nice gesture." She rolls her eyes. "I figured what ever Piggy Wiggly shit Samuels mother chose could stay in the back so no one had to look at it." _It was the A & P, troll._

She snickered and pushed the scrapbook away from her. "But then Samuels best man, Jacob", Emily looked at me then, "suggested we might consider you. What with your mutual interests and all. Really, the cake was the least important feature to me, no offense. "

I can actually visualize the acid moving up my esophagus. I squeeze my gut a little hoping to tamp it down.

Emily pulls out a page from her binder and lays it before me. "But then I saw this," she's tapping the paper with a too long to be practical finger nail and says, "and I knew you had to do it."

It's a page from an older edition of Texas Monthly magazine. It's a small article really, and you can hardly tell it's me standing next to a lit UT Tower cake. It was a custom order for some fundraiser held in the university club.

I didn't even know that the picture was going to run in a magazine. I'm wearing a tight black t-shirt with hot pink letters spelling out "SUGAR SHACK" across my chest. Jess and Alice's design, not mine. You can actually tell I have boobs in this shirt and they look huge. If I'd known about the article I might have worn something less, like this. Something to make the reader notice my brains instead.

"I didn't know what to expect, considering you have the name 'shack' in your title. But, this isn't a shack, Bella. This place is not bad!", Emily declares.

I'm reading over the things I said during my 'interview' and it makes me sound like I have half a brain after all.

"Awesome, Emily. This is really awesome. Do you mind if I keep this?", I ask. She waves a dismissive hand towards me and I fold the page up. It's my proof we need new uniforms. "I'm honored, truly honored that you would choose us for your wedding."

"Great, so when do we start the designing? I figure I can pre approve a few cakes so that when the Uley's come in they can select from them. I'm sure you don't make shit cakes.," Emily laughs and slaps her hand on the table. "Ha, shit cakes! But I just might bite off Samuels head if he tried to order a bud light beer can cake."

"Uh, well. I'll have to schedule you with Alice. She's our bridal dessert specialist. I hate to tell you this, but Alice can only sit down with you on either Tuesdays or Saturdays. Let me go check." I jump from my seat before I see Emily's pout set in.

I grab two bottles of water from the chiller and crack the top open on one. I chug about half down wishing the whole time it was a clear liquid with a little more sting to it. Lovely, she's making me want to drink at three in the afternoon. And we've only just met.

I'm going to write it off as being in shock that Sam, Jake's Sam, will be standing here in my shop at some point. And if the rest of the Uley's come, it will be about half the damn town!

Great, she has me mind swearing too. This is going to be so much fun.

I offer Emily the second bottle of water and she looks it over closely. I'm not sure if she's checking the brand or to be sure I don't just refill old bottles from the tap or something, but it's weird anyways.

I take a few more gulps from my own and Emily stares at me. I realize I've allowed my lady like façade to fall and I probably look like I should be drinking from a trough.

I open the scheduler book and see that Alice has an opening in a few days. I offer Emily an apologetic smile. She still hasn't recovered from my telling her 'no'. The nerve of me making her wait!

"Oh wonderful Emily! Alice can meet with you this Saturday, 10 am. You'll love her. Alice is our artist, she can create anything that you dream up. Really, I can't draw for, uh, shit. Making this appointment will get you her absolute, undivided attention. You can bring any number of your wedding party, sample the cakes. Alice can make anything you envision a reality." Frig I'm rambling. I pull out that magazine paper and point at it with my nubby, efficiency sized nail and say, "this is nothing compared to what Alice can do now."

Hook. Line. Sinker. Emily is clapping her hands together and I'm waiting for Tinkerbelle to fly out of her butt. She stands and hugs me around my shoulders again. She lets go as suddenly as she grabbed on.

"Damn it! Shit! Fuck, I'm late!", Emily spews with ease and it makes me cringe. She's fouling up my whole store.

She looks at her real Cartier watch and in her best fake voice says that she is supposed to be meeting 'old Mrs. Uley at the muumuu store in hopes to steer her towards a less hideous dress for the wedding'.

Emily shoves the wedding binder into her tote bag, pulls out her phone and dials a number. She was yelling at the person on the other end, "Traffic sucks monkey balls. Tell her I'll be there when I get there!" Ah, must be the fiancé.

Ashton Kutcher has got be doing that crappy Punk'd show again and I'm about to meet Sandra Bullock and Jesse James. Has to be the only explanation for this.

There is a loud knock on the glass and it's Emily. She's waving at me. I return the salutation and watch her check her reflection and then barrel down the street.

She's going to be back. In here. With reinforcements. Shit.

I drop my empty bottle to the recycling bin by the counter and open Emily's and drain it too, still wishing it was Tito's best. I'm dehydrated from a fifteen minute meeting with her.

I'm penciling in 'Emily Young & Sam ULEY(!)' into the 10:20 am spot. ULEY, because, wowza. And 10:20 because I'm a realist. That girl will be late for her own wedding.

I 'm so absorbed, still running over this insane thing that I'm pretty sure I've just agreed to do, that I don't even hear the front door chime open again.

I'm hardly aware of some sloshing thing and running feet approaching me.

I don't even look up until a lidded cup of the promised caffeine happy is tapping my hand.

I take it as two little arms wrap around my legs and shriek, "Mommy!"

* * *

A song for your consideration:

L.E.S. Artistes by Santigold


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